


A Felix Fraldarius Christmas

by eyegnats, shenyun5000



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Bittersweet, Christmas fic, Comedy, Illustrated, M/M, Modern AU, Nostalgia Grappling, Peanuts Homage, Pining, Sylvix Advent Calendar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:13:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27880561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyegnats/pseuds/eyegnats, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shenyun5000/pseuds/shenyun5000
Summary: Don’t let your complicated, bittersweet relationship with your hometown get you down! Join Felix Fraldarius, Sylvain Gautier, and a cast of spirited friends as they prepare for the Faerghan holidays in this timeless illustrated classic.Refind your Christmas spirit inA Felix Fraldarius Christmas,brought to you by our friends at RC Cola®!
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 23
Kudos: 138
Collections: Sylvix Advent Calendar





	A Felix Fraldarius Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> For the [Sylvix Advent Calendar](https://twitter.com/SylvixCalendar)! In collaboration with [Reuben](https://twitter.com/shenyun5000), whose illustrations and comics serve to ground this fic in a layer of genuine warmth unprecedented in comedic fanfiction.
> 
> Reub has also provided an [accompanying playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1IpqpLOdEgUVEGTLlSVUJq?si=9e1amg2JRBKWF9ijq-8NFg) for maximum jazzy Christmas vibes.

Felix Fraldarius was unsatisfied with Christmas.

Felix Fraldarius was twenty-something and had long lost his taste for tradition. Christmas in Faerghus was roughly the same, year after year, give or take some commercial Adrestian influence, and what was once a welcome return to longstanding yule had given way to the tortuous grate of a wheel uncompromised. Felix Fraldarius did not like Faerghus. Felix Fraldarius did not like Christmas.

Felix Fraldarius leaned against a cold, cinderblock wall and watched a hockey game play out on the frozen lake beyond. Sylvain Gautier stood beside him. Sylvain was warm and alive and watching their mutual friend, Ingrid Galatea, get into a fist fight on the ice. A battalion of teammates joined her in the fray. Sylvain said, not looking up from where blood was splattering onto the snow, “It’s not so bad, really.”

“Faerghus?” Felix asked.

“Christmas,” Sylvain replied. “You used to love Christmas, Felix Fraldarius.”

This was not untrue. Felix used to love felling trees and riding horses through the snow and cooking warm, simple foods and playing hockey, just like this, on the jagged surface of a local lake. He used to lead the pre-game prayer circle himself.

“I don’t. And I never did,” Felix said. “It’s a matter of principle.”

“Are you threatening a gap year in Adrestia again? I told you, man, it’s not a gap year if you never enrolled.”

Felix thought of the hallowed halls of his local community college. “It can’t be a real academic institution if they let wild animals in.”

“For the last time: his name is Dimitri, he’s your childhood friend, and he’s majoring in communications,” Sylvain said. “Which is more than you’re doing, by the way.”

The hockey players were back up, now. Annette Dominic was singing a cheerful ditty about the weak solidarity of the opposing team, calling her side to arms. Ingrid, nose bloodied, looked offended at the implication.

“You used to love it, is all,” Sylvain continued. “We used to have a great time. You remember, right?”

“Not willingly.”

“Come on,” Sylvain said, chiding, “no one does Christmas like Faerghus does Christmas.”

“Did we really have a good time?” Felix asked.

Sylvain’s laughter stalled. He said, with a scattered chuckle, “I don’t want to think too hard about it.”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

Felix gazed out over the lake from his cinderblock wall. He watched their good friend Ingrid nail a trickshot for a goal. Ingrid was so fucking good at hockey. She looked pleased with herself, pleased with her team and her day. She looked happy. Felix glanced back at Sylvain. He looked handsome. He looked happy too, his cheeks flushed from the cold. He seemed content to linger and watch the winter sport and smile.

“I guess I don’t understand how you guys can just be alright with it,” Felix said. “All of it.”

“I’ve made peace with my childhood,” Sylvain replied.

“You are literally holding Mercedes’ hand for comfort right now.”

They both looked right to the woman beside them. Mercedes was a bright spot of white fur trim as she cheered on Annette’s hammer of a slap-shot. Her pastel mitten was wrapped up firmly within Sylvain’s hand. His grip on it looked tight.

“So I’ve hit a rough patch in the road,” Sylvain said, returning his attention to Felix. “I’m not infallible.”

“You’ve been holding Mercedes’ hand since Thanksgiving,” Felix noted.

“A rough patch,” Sylvain said. “The infrastructure in this country is awful.”

“Let it go.”

“What?”

“Let the hand of your emotional support woman go.”

Mercedes continued her enjoyment of the game without the slightest acknowledgement of them. Sylvain smiled. He said, “She’s not an emotional support woman.”

Felix pushed. “Prove it.”

Sylvain looked down at the soft, pastel mitten in his grasp. He kept smiling. Felix watched him go tense, a sliver of panic falling behind unblinking eyes. Sylvain swallowed. A long, fateful moment dragged over both of them, the tension raking Sylvain through the horror of potential futures presented by an uncaring, nigh comedic, God. The inherent chaos of reality seemed to settle upon his shoulders in response to the mere concept of not being tethered to this warm, maternal embrace, this simple mitten. The reluctant admission of the bitter unknown was only a subtle, few, dangerous inches from his peripheral. A Seyfert galaxy pulsed above. He did not let go of Mercedes’ hand.

“I’m good, actually?” Sylvain said. 

Felix sighed. “Okay, Sylvain. I’ll see you later.”

Felix set out from the lake in a stew of dissatisfaction. He trudged through the snow and kicked at every pebble or improperly discarded beer bottle fortunate enough to meet his path. He thought about Sylvain: Sylvain, dressed for the cold, speaking to him of the not-always-the-worst Christmas memories they shared as if these moments were precious to him, indispensable to both of them. Felix wished he could burrow himself in those fleeting glimpses of Sylvain’s nostalgia, and only those moments, where nothing comes before or after the shiny rose tint.

Felix kicked a pebble that was actually an unforgiving pile of rubble from a 150-year-old wall finally collapsed under the weight of the snow. The rubble tumbled over itself but did not give easily. Felix said, foot shooting with pain, “Fuck.”

“Felix Fraldarius,” a voice called out to him.

Felix spun around on one foot and snapped, “What?”

Dedue Molinaro stood alone, just off the roadside slush. He said, “You appear as if you’re looking for something to kick.”

Felix watched as a football was procured from beneath the arm of Dedue. It was held out to him. Then, it was planted firmly against the ground. 

“Go ahead,” Dedue said, straightforward.

An invitation. A challenge. A doomed opportunity presented to Felix several dozen times before, the good griefs of any witness party unheard within the depths of his competitive spirit. He was tempted. Still, he knew how this ended. He knew how this always ended.

Felix made his decision. In a split-second, gunning for the element of surprise, Felix drew his foot back for a flash of a kick. Dedue was ready. Dedue redoubled his grip on the football. Felix’s sneaker collided with the pigskin but the ball held firm. It scooted mere centimeters in the snow beneath Felix’s assault, so firmly was it held in Dedue’s palm. Felix’s foot may as well have collided with a cinderblock overlooking a frozen lake.

“Ineffective,” Dedue said.

The momentum intended for the football rocketed back up Felix’s body. The knock-back felt stronger than the kick itself, tipping him off-balance and toppling him backwards to Earth. Felix felt the frigid snow embrace the edges of him. He stared up at the cold, winter sun. A shadow overtook his vision. Dedue gazed down at where he lay defeated in a drift.

“Every time, Felix Fraldarius,” Dedue stated. “Every time.”

The next morning, Felix reluctantly exited the Fraldarius house at the muffled trombone order of his father to check the mail. Felix opened his mailbox to find it barren. It was not as if he expected different. And yet—

In the distance, Felix heard the terrifying, wrote echo of a music box sample. He looked sharp over his shoulder. He already knew the source. Even before the dulcet tones of Miss Mariah Carey began, Felix Fraldarious knew her source.

Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd and his LED-lit doghouse were up early. The speakers built into his garish Christmas decor were already spilling over with cheer and love and also Mariah Carey was there too. Dimitri checked his own mailbox, pulling a fat stack of envelopes from its gaping, candy-striped maw. He shuffled through each decorated letter with a bashful smile on his face, charmed with the amount of season’s greetings he had received. When he reached the end Felix could swear the mighty boar’s eye was beginning to tear up.

“Dedue’s been keeping the post office in business, I see,” Felix scowled from his driveway.

Dimitri, more than any of them, maybe, had no reason to celebrate Christmas. Felix watched him sit atop his doghouse and read his Christmas cards at seven in the goddamn morning anyway. Felix could not scowl further at him because he was already scowling. Dimitri noticed him scowling. He waved a good morning back.

Felix ignored him. Felix was not sure why the sight of Dimitri happy angered him. Felix was not sure what Sylvain, and Ingrid, and especially Dimitri possessed within them that left them able and open to enjoy the holidays. Faerghus had not offered them anything that encouraged such joy. Had they discovered the true meaning of Christmas while he was busy grovelling in the depths of his masculine pain? Was it hockey? Felix briefly wondered if he should get back into hockey.

Whatever it was, Felix _wanted_ it. 

And he decided, right there beside his empty mailbox, that he would find it.

❅

Felix set out on his newfound quest after a lunch of peanut butter and jelly, infuriatingly crustless thanks to the meddling of his father. Felix crunched the snow extra hard while walking by Dimitri’s doghouse. Ingrid, dressed in her official blue uniform and doing her silly little public servant tasks, was delivering a fresh bundle of envelopes to Dimitri’s mailbox. Felix watched her slip in her own greeting card from her pocket and into the stack. She waved at Felix as he passed.

“My card from you must have gotten lost, then, Galatea,” Felix said.

“I assure you I’m too good at my job for that, Felix Fraldarius,” Ingrid replied, confident, and with the smugness acquired by being the only member of the conversation with a contribution to society.

Felix ignored her. Felix continued his sad, moody hike into town. Suburban streets turned to stripmalls and halfhearted city planning as he slunk over icy sidewalks. He passed a vacant lot where some highschool kids had precariously balanced a Bush’s Baked Beans can upon a fence post. They were stationed some distance away and attempting to knock the can over with snowballs. Each throw was met with a splatter against the fence or a pitiful plop after a too-short toss. The pitchers’ focus was intense. They acted as if this was the most prime entertainment Faerghus had to offer. And, in many unfortunate ways, it was.

Felix threw a snowball at the can just to put the children out of their misery. It sailed right over the top of the target. Laughter met his ears, which pinkened with the lack of snowball-to-can impact.

“Felix Fraldarius!” a voice called out to him. Ashe approached despite the deterrent of Felix’s worst expression. “I’ve been looking for you!” Ashe continued. Ugh.

“What do you want,” Felix said.

Ashe produced a scrap of lined paper and a pencil. “I need your handwriting!”

“My what.”

“Your private school handwriting,” Ashe said. “I’m writing my wishlist to Santa. He hasn’t come by my house since Lonato passed, but Santa always visits rich kids, so I figured if I wrote my letter in really neat, clear handwriting, he might come again!”

Felix stared at Ashe. Ashe’s face was so hopeful, so full of belief. Felix considered ruining everything. He considered ruining everything very hard, then decided that was probably against the Christmas cheer he claimed to be seeking.

“Okay,” Felix said, through gritted teeth. “Hand it over.”

Felix nicked the paper and pencil from Ashe’s hands. He shot Ashe an expectant glare. Ashe beamed, and said: “Oh! Okay, we can start now. Dear Santa. Dear Mr. Santa? This year, all I want is a filling Christmas dinner. I know grocery prices have increased because of the poor harvest, but Albertsons has a sale on pre-made pie crusts right now, so if you can please spare me anything you have, I promise I can make it into something worthwhile. And, uh, please help my landlord fix our heating unit, if that’s within your power. And please look out for yourself this Christmas, too, Santa…”

Felix rolled his eyes.

Felix cemented an unmoved posture at Ashe’s words. He finished scribbling down “amen,” and handed the paper back to the small, victorian orphan of a man before him.

Ashe’s smile returned as he looked over the paper. “It’s perfect!” he said.

“Yeah,” Felix responded, hollow, “perfect.”

Felix abandoned Ashe and the rest of the vacant lot kids to their Bush’s Baked Beanquest. He marched down his salt and vinegared sidewalks further into town. He grumbled throughout. He was not moved by Ashe’s faith in the face of crippling adversity. He wasn’t, but it did make him feel strange. Annoyed, maybe, at the way Ashe’s eyes had lit up at Felix’s reluctant compliance. He tried to shrug off the sensation and stayed course.

He was only pulled from his venture by the jingle of coins against a mental can. He looked up from the slush at his feet, and groaned.

Tucked between a closed cash-for-gold venture and a Subway was a small, wooden stand. Its sign was painted with a simple proclamation: “Psychiatric Help, $5.00. The Doctor is IN.”

Dedue Molinaro sat behind it. He looked bored. He rattled a can at an aging, red-haired veteran that stood at his counter. The man opened his wallet and placed several large bills into the makeshift cash register. The old man started talking again, his voice the grating squeal of the most unfunky horn section known to humanity. Dedue listened, patient. For now. It was clear that his steadfast ear was drawing near its end.

Felix watched the scene play out until the man’s wallet was empty and Dedue began to usher him along his way. Dedue cleared out his shop, saying, “Thank you for your patronage, Gilbert. Please call your daughter. It’s the season.” When he was free from the storm of middle age manpain his eye caught upon Felix.

Dedue did not take his gaze off Felix, and his hand blindly reached for his can.

“I’m not looking for a shrink,” Felix spit, quickly.

“You’re in a foul mood already this morning, Felix Fraldarius,” Dedue said.

Felix scrunched his face. He said, “I’m just trying to wrap my head around why everyone is having such a great—”

Dedue rattled his can at him.

Felix said, “I’m not—” Dedue rattled his can. “I’m not fucking—” Dedue rattled his can. “I just don’t understand why—” Rattle. “Christmas—” Rattle. “Fuck. Fine.”

Felix shrugged his hand into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He riffled through the wad of cash inside and pulled out a five dollar bill. He placed it into Dedue’s can. “There. Can I speak now?”

Dedue pointed up at the sign.

“What?” Felix said. He waited. “It’s five dollars, right?”

“Reading comprehension, Felix Fraldarius,” Dedue said.

Felix squinted back up at the sign with its neat, painted penmanship. Upon closer inspection, Felix saw that what he had originally scanned as “$5.00” actually lacked a decimal.

“Five hundred dollars,” Felix said, looking back at Dedue. “You’re fucking with me.”

Dedue rattled his can. “No.”

They shared another stare-off. Another challenge. Felix would not be bested. He emptied a quarter of his wallet into the can, a champion. “There,” Felix said. “Are we square?’

“You have fifteen minutes.”

Felix told him of his situation: of his lack of excitement for Christmas where it once burned bright in his chest; his frustration with Dimitri’s enjoyment of the holidays, with Ingrid’s embrace of Faerghan tradition. He told Dedue of his growing infatuation with Sylvain, despite a fundamental disconnect regarding their childhoods and Sylvain’s growing dependence on mitten-holding. He told Dedue of how pretty Sylvain looked when he was thinking of happier times. Dedue nodded through it, and listened. Dedue nodded, and at the end of it, said, “So you’re looking for your Christmas spirit?”

“Sure,” Felix said. “Yeah. Let’s forget about that Sylvain stuff, okay? Okay.”

“Okay,” Dedue replied. “Have you tried getting involved in the community?”

“What, like community theater?” Felix asked. 

“No,” Dedue said, “like giving back to the people who have directly or indirectly served you, and letting the warmth that comes from assisting others fuel your enjoyment of the season.”

“I think the local theater is putting on a nativity,” Felix said. “That’ll work, right? That’s Christmas.”

“I am a little perturbed over how quickly you have jumped to community theater as your solution,” Dedue replied. 

“Yes, I think that will work,” Felix said. “Thank you, Dedue.”

Dedue stared, indecipherable, at Felix. He glanced down at his full can. He glanced back up. “...Good luck then, Felix Fraldarius.”

It took Felix three hours and an unfortunate call to Ingrid to schedule a place amidst the Annual Christmas Nativity. 

Faerghus Community Theater was hardly the Adrestian Opera. It was hosted at a historic building in the closest thing to the nethers of the city, the kind of historic building that didn’t have the adhere to fire codes or accessibility requirements. Felix took the uneven steps two at a time and arrived at his future Christmas spirit with an unfamiliar spark of hope.

A nativity set was scattered across the polished, planked stage. A piano sat in the corner. A plywood star hung above a manger. Heavy velvet curtains flanked all sides. Felix saw a group of lost, community theater twenty-somethings shuffling around the scene in jeans and jackets, bopping along with festive jazz music. The usual sort: familiar faces Felix had known all his life and could not seem to escape. Ingrid, now a self-proclaimed stage director, who had taken an unprecedented interest in the arts since starting up an LDR with some Adrestian girl. Ashe, whose reason for being here was unintelligible. Annette, bright and bubbly and deserving more than anything this stage or city could offer her. Mercedes, here with Annette. Sylvain, here with Mercedes. Dedue—Dedue? Dedue, here with—

Dimitri. Dimitri was here and he had a cumbersome double bass. Felix was not sure why he had a cumbersome double bass but the dread that crawled up his neck conveyed nothing but a grim future on four strings. He was about to turn around and walk out when Mercedes said:

“Felix Fraldarius, please don’t turn around and walk out.”

The music stalled. Felix groaned, and the turn-foot that had been hovering towards a retreat set itself back upon the ground.

“Yeah, Felix Fraldarius,” Annette chimed, “Ingrid said you wanted to help!”

Felix reluctantly approached the stage. As he drew closer, he saw that the holy manger actually held a framed photograph of his late brother, Glenn. Felix groaned louder.

“Felix Fraldarius!” Ingrid said. “I’m so glad you’re here. You worked as a stage tech back in high school, right?”

“He did?” Sylvain asked. His head swiveled from her to Felix. “You did?”

Felix flushed and raised an accusative hand towards Annette’s direction. He kept his mouth shut. Sometimes a simple action can tell a whole separate oneshot of a story.

“No one could move furniture around between scenes like Felix Fraldarius,” Annette said, proud. “I swore he could see in the dark. Like a cat.”

“You would be tech,” Ingrid said. 

“Don’t pretend you knew what the hell that even meant until you had a girl to impress, Galatea,” Felix replied, grumpily.

“My friend!” Dimitri said, so grossly pleasant, so thoroughly punchable. “I almost doubted my own ears when Ingrid said you wanted to participate. Unlikeliness aside, I am so glad you’re here.”

“I see you took your own advice to heart,” Dedue noted, beside him.

Felix scowled. Dimitri grinned, and said, “We were just rehearsing the opening number.”

“Oh yes,” Mercedes said. She clapped her hands together. “Won’t you listen in?”

All eyes fell to Felix. Their gazes ranged from hopeful to demanding to entirely indifferent. “I don’t remember The Nativity having an opening number,” Felix said.

“It’s new!’ Annette said.

“‘New,’” Felix replied in a dull echo.

“Sit down, Felix Fraldarius,” Ingrid ordered. Next to her, Sylvain shot him a wink. Felix did not know that winks could be expectant before Sylvain, that winks could be laced with a prompt for action and then a signal of thanks. Sylvain’s winks somehow managed to have oceanic depths. Felix glanced away from him.

He reluctantly took a seat in a front row auditorium seat.

Dimitri’s bass was steady and firm as he opened the rehearsal. Ingrid had settled herself at a drumset disguised behind a cardboard cutout of a donkey. The glass of Glenn’s frame rattled in his manger from the force of her fervor. Sylvain and Mercedes were sharing the duty of ringing festive handbells: three in all between their available appendages. Felix hated himself for recognizing a jazz rendition of Aly & AJ’s _The Greatest Time of Year_ (2006) from its opening notes. He hated himself so much.

Annette stepped forward to center stage. Her voice was sharp and pure. _It’s the greatest time of year._

Her voice was so good, actually. _With everybody here, friends so dear._ Felix could tolerate this for her only. _I don’t think I could ever tire of being together._ Okay, Felix could also tolerate this for the sight of Sylvain, happy, intently waiting for his next sparse handbell cue. _It’s the picture perfect moment captured, with memories that we’ll have after._ Oh god this was quickly becoming a songfic. _It’s the greatest time of year._ Or, god forbid, a lyricstuck.

_Joy to the world and everyone lift up your hearts and feel the love—_

Felix had to make an active effort to dampen his heart in his mind fortress. Annette had that effect on people. What a cruel songstress, forcing people to shut themselves off emotionally with the sheer power of music. She was such a terrible person, really. Awful.

The song finished. Everyone looked to Felix. Felix stared back. He was so deep in his mind fortress it took him a solid 37 seconds to realize he should clap. He did. Twice, even. Ingrid looked unimpressed.

“Well?” Ingrid said.

“Do tell us what you think,” Dimitri said.

“Dimitri shouldn’t be the one to ask that question,” Sylvain said.

“What did you think, Felix Fraldarius?” Annette asked.

“Thank you, Annette,” Sylvain said.

Felix kept his eyeline to a far curtain. He said, gritting it out, “It was fine.”

Mercedes beamed. “High praise.”

“When does the barn-birth come in?” Felix prompted, redirecting his and their attention.

“Oh, that’s right after _Christmas for Cowboys,_ but before _All I Want for Christmas is You,”_ Annette said. Then, as if sensing his spark of disdain, added, “—The My Chemical Romance arrangement, don’t worry.”

“That offers me no comfort whatsoever,” Felix said. “I’m supposed to be refinding my Christmas spirit. Is this even an actual nativity?”

The group made a confident noise of confirmation.

“Hey guys, before this heads south faster than an ill-fated Faerghus business startup, do we have something Felix can do for the show?” Sylvain asked.

The group made a vague noise of confirmation.

Sylvain said, “Yeah? What are we thinking?”

The group grew quiet.

“Come on.” Sylvain waved at Felix. “There’s got to be something. He has stage experience. Apparently.”

The group stayed quiet.

Thankfully, Ingrid stepped forward. “We need a Christmas tree for the stage,” she suggested.

“Oh—Oh, yeah!” Annette agreed, immediately. “A big, metal Adrestian tree, or an Almyran pine! They smell so good!”

Dedue gave a single, firm nod. “That’s a wonderful idea.”

“You want me to get a smelly tree,” Felix said.

“Yes,” the group replied.

“You want to get rid of me,” Felix said.

“Never,” Sylvain replied, “aren’t you the prop-man? It sounds like we need a prop. Here, me and Mercedes will even go with you.” Mercedes politely leaned over and whispered in his ear. Sylvain bent close to her and nodded. After a moment, Sylvain’s head popped back up. “Sorry. I’m supposed to be practicing healthy independence. _I’ll_ go with you.”

Mercedes patted him on the bicep. 

Felix looked around at the urging gazes of his acquaintances. He looked to Ingrid, gesturing her hands outwards repeatedly as if she was about to usher him away herself. He looked to Annette, who didn’t need his sour face sabotaging her performances. He looked to Sylvain, who despite not having yet let go of Mercedes’ mitten seemed genuine in his offer.

“Fine,” he said, frowning. “I’ll get the smelliest tree they have.”

❅

The two of them set out immediately.

“Don’t let Ingrid get you down,” Sylvain said as they crunched through the snow. His hands kept flexing, as if searching for a reassuring body that was not present. He settled on shoving them in his pockets. “Her girlfriend’s coming into town for the first time and she wants to impress her.”

“With Faerghus?” Felix scoffed. There was a Christmas tree lot not far from the theater, their city being ample in vacant locales to set up seasonal business ventures. They left two trenches in the snow behind them.

“With Faerghus. I think this trip might be a pitch for Dorothea to move in. Ingrid wants the place to make a good impression.”

“Despite everything,” Felix muttered.

“Despite everything,” Sylvain agreed.

A large, painted sign designating their target loomed in the distance. The sun was setting. Stars were settling overhead. Sylvain, unprompted, laughed. 

“What?” Felix questioned.

Sylvain’s laughter trailed into a quiet snicker. “Sorry. I was thinking about Ingrid in Adrestia.”

“You don’t laugh like that when you talk about me moving to Adrestia,” Felix said.

“You in Adrestia isn’t funny. It’s too expected.”

“You really think I’d just leave town?”

“Oh, Felix Fraldarius,” Sylvain chimed, slinging an arm around Felix’s shoulders, “I thought I’d lose you a long time ago.”

Sylvain kept his arm around Felix’s shoulders as they entered the Christmas tree lot. Felix had no idea what to make of the action. Felix could not remember the last time he let someone touch him to such an extreme and such an extent. Sylvain acted as if it was nothing. Sylvain looped himself around Felix and pretended as if they were born that way. Sylvain acted no less than casual as they wandered into an artificial forest of painted-on snow and tradition, Felix’s shoulders heavy with his unnoted affection.

Local, famished trees had been forever outstripped in popularity by the towering pines imported from the eastern Alliance and the factory-made, tin perfection of Adrestia. Both territories’ interest in Christmas had long given way from religious to capitalist. Felix didn’t blame them, and yet he failed to snuff the spark of discontent they set in his chest. Felix failed to think of anything but the small, garlanded trees he would decorate with Glenn as a child. The way they shed needles all over the floor. The way they would be scrapped for firewood by New Years’. Felix Fraldarius hated this piece of himself most of all: the little prickle that still cared about his home, about the “good times,” about the slow erosion of what used to be.

“Hey, this one’s pink,” Sylvain said, pointing out a tree.

“What do you do when you’re subconsciously perpetuating something you claim to despise?” Felix asked.

“I have no idea,” Sylvain replied. “Dude, look at this one. You have to piece it together like a Gundam.”

Felix allowed himself to be steered through the rows of commercial bobbles and bright trees. He did not absorb any of their splendor. He walked without purpose in his search for a meaningless tree for a meaningless nativity. He walked and tried to ignore the little dinosaur nugget of nostalgic cheer inside the unaddressed personal grief inside the all-seeing eye of religious obligation inside the general idea of Christmas that rattled around his interior.

Sylvain said, “This one’s got smartphone compatibility. Dimitri’s got a cellphone, right? How smart is it?” but Felix’s gaze was far away from Sylvain’s pointed finger. Instead, it had fallen on a tiny, weak-trunked local tree tucked behind a vast, silver, Adrestian one. Felix reached down and lifted it up. It weighed little more than a houseplant.

What do you do when the past brings nothing but pain?

“This one’s shitty,” Felix stated.

Sylvain looked up from a jumble of metal-plated trees with white flocking. “It sure is.”

What do you do when the past brings pain but the future feels empty without it?

Felix tucked the tree into his arms. He didn’t say anything, but Sylvain had long learned how to pick up on his subtle, brooding signals. Sylvain knew when Felix Fraldarius was lashing out and when he was well and truly resolved. Sylvain knew when Felix cared.

“Felix Fraldarius,” Sylvain said, with the slightest hint of amusement, “that is the shittiest tree here.”

❅

“What the heck is this,” Ingrid called out over the arching, ancient dome of the auditorium.

“Tree,” Sylvain replied, simply.

“Sylvain! What the heck is this!”

Felix gripped his tree closer to his chest. It lost a few needles in the rustle. He bared his teeth at Ingrid. She bared her teeth right back. They faced off against each other, just like that, no grander than puppies.

“Ingrid, be nice,” Ashe said.

Ingrid placed both her hands on Sylvain’s shoulders. “Dearest, oldest, friend,” she said, “I’ve got a girl coming. I thought you, of all people, would sympathize with that.”

“Stop being dramatic,” Felix said.

Ingrid glared at him. “Is this your doing, then?”

Everyone’s attention snapped to Felix in unison.

“Yes,” he said.

“Well I, for one, think it’s a lovely tree,” Dimitri offered. Dedue let out a short breath through his nose.

“Of course it was your idea, Felix Fraldarius,” Ingrid said, “of course it was!”

“It, ah,” Annette attempted, hesitant. “Maybe it could go up on the piano?”

“Oh, yes, with a garnish of… well, it looks awfully delicate. Maybe we should hold off on the decorations,” Mercedes said. 

“It’s severely dehydrated,” Dedue said. “Cut trees need access to water. I doubt it will see curtain call without immediate care.”

“Were they out of other trees?” Ashe inquired.

Ingrid huffed. “There’s no way. Not in this economy.”

“Come on, guys,” Sylvain smiled, gesturing to the shitty tree. “It’s homely! Don’t you think it’s homely?”

They did not. The group of them stared blank at Felix and Sylvain. Some confused, some disappointed. Felix rolled his eyes. “I don’t need your approval.”

“I am the director,” Ingrid said, “you literally do.”

“It’s a Christmas tree, isn’t it?” Felix snapped.

“Purely on technicality, Felix Fraldarius,” Ingrid snapped back. “What were you thinking?”

Felix wasn’t sure. He’d been a weird wash of emotions and decisions all day. It was a sensation he would usually ignore or at least hide by minding his own business. But here he was, on stage, every eye in the place trained on him in search of an explanation. 

He said, “I just don’t get it.”

“What?” Ingrid replied.

He declared, “Christmas. I don’t get it.”

The ensuing silence gave way only to Ingrid’s echoing, “Well, clearly.”

Sylvain’s arm settled around Felix again. It squeezed his shoulder. Comforting, in a way Felix did not require but was kind nonetheless. “My man here was just going the traditional route with the tree. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Oh, don’t pretend like you know anything about Christmas either, Sylvain,” Ingrid said.

“I do, actually,” Sylvain pushed back.

This time, the ensuing silence remained silent. It was expectant. It waited for Sylvain to justify himself. “I do,” Sylvain said, firmer.

Sylvain patted Felix’s shoulder and then unwound himself from him. Sylvain stepped forward, as if into a spotlight. Everything hushed as he opened his mouth to speak:

“I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True,” he said, with the inherent dull reverence of scripture repetition. “With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself...” Felix’s mind glazed over the way it often did during bible study. He heard a stream of words swim in and out of his ears without sticking. Something about horses?

“Was that supposed to give me meaning to Christmas,” Felix asked.

“I’m… not sure,” Mercedes replied.

“Maybe the real meaning of Christmas is marking another year closer to our pious ascension into the heavens,” Ingrid said.

Everyone murmured in agreement.

“I can’t wait to die,” Dimitri said.

“Me too, buddy,” Sylvain nodded. “In good time.”

“I hate all of you,” Felix said, and scowled, and turned to leave.

No one moved to stop him. He peeked over his shoulder, just to see if they even noticed his slow, yearning departure. He found the majority of them now engaged in a theological discussion. Only Dedue stood on the outskirts. Felix wasn’t even sure if he even celebrated Christmas, but he was listening in. He glanced over at Felix. 

“Dehydrated,” Dedue stated, again, as Ingrid argued that the horse and not the rider was the one waging the war against the corruption of humanity.

Felix stood baffled before he realized Dedue was not looking at him, but rather the tree in his hands.

“Yeah,” Felix said, shrugging himself away and towards the exit. “Sure. Whatever.”

❅

Felix sat on his porch steps, alone. As he had that morning. As he intended to do until his presumed untimely death. His shitty tree sat beside him. It looked sad.

The front door opened and a slice of warm, orange light cut across the porch and the snow beyond. Felix didn’t need to turn around to know his father was behind him. Rodrigue’s chiding trombone asked him to come inside.

“Go away, old man,” Felix said. He heard one last brassy murmur of dinner and a warm fire before the door was shut and the sliver of warm light shrunk to nonexistence.

Felix sighed. He rested his chin on his hands and looked out at the dying suburb of his neighborhood. He saw the Blue Sea Star above. He saw the blue, icy street. He ignored the irritating flicker of an unrepaired streetlight. He tried to ignore Dimitri’s doghouse, but it was bright and colorful and still chiming out saccharine Christmas tunes. Felix watched twinkling lights bounce off the ornaments littering its exterior. Felix was struck with an idea. He glanced back at his shitty, naked tree.

There were worse things to steal from than a boar.

Felix carried his tree over to the foot of the doghouse. Felix did not have an eye for aesthetics, and so he plucked the first shiny ornament he could reach from the house and hung it on the tree.

The tree seemed to shudder beneath the weight. It struggled, giving the decoration its best effort, before the laws of nature won and the ball dipped—dragging down the top of the tree with it. The tree bowed, its posture an unsettling droop. The sight was pathetic. 

Felix wanted to feel sorry about it, but he did not. He stared down at the shitty tree and felt nothing.

“...Hey,” a familiar voice called.

Felix looked up from his sad excuse for Christmas and saw Sylvain standing, alone, in the snow.

“Hello again,” Felix said. 

“Nice tree you got there.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

Sylvain smiled, and trudged through the snow to be closer to Felix. Felix wished he wouldn’t.

“What are you doing here?” Felix asked. 

As if to answer, Sylvain plucked two more ornaments off the doghouse. He squatted down and set both of them at the base of the tree. He looked over his creation like a neutral god, then stood back up and said, “It kind of looks like a dick now, doesn’t it?”

Felix stared at him, incredulous. Sylvain attempted a laugh. It was not reciprocated. They both fell to silence, their gazes dragging from each other to the tree.

The quiet was frigid. Sylvain shifted from one foot to another. In embarrassment, maybe, or just from the cold. Sylvain was alone again and Felix could see his fingers flex with the anxiety. Felix didn’t comment on it. They stood in snow up to their shins and they stood in silent witness to their shitty little dick-tree. 

Felix was struck with another terrible idea.

Felix reached out and took Sylvain’s hand. It was cold without a mitten to hold it, but it was Sylvain’s and Sylvain.

Felix said, finally, “...I guess it kind of does.”

All was calm, all was quiet.

“Are you doing alright?” Sylvain asked, banging his kneecap on that quiet. “You’ve been weird the last few days.”

“So you’re just going to come into my yard, hold my hand, and call me weird, then,” Felix said.

“You held my hand,” Sylvain replied, easy, “but yes.”

Sylvain leaned close with that same teasing expression he usually had before he winked—before he winked, deflected, pulled back, and called the whole situation a joke. A wash. Sylvain did not wink. He lingered, near, his breath warm and visible. He smiled. He opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it, and smiled again. Amused in some unspoken thought.

“What."

“Felix…” Sylvain started. He was laughing again, light and nervous. He was leaning closer. “Would you want to—”

“Hey! You two!”

Another voice struck out over the snow. Felix sucked in a breath he had not realized he wasn’t taking and whipped his attention away from Sylvain. Sylvain recovered only a half second later, his head falling to the side in time to watch Ingrid march herself treeside.

“Ingrid,” Sylvain said, cheerful. “Please. Join the party.”

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” she said, quickly. She did sound breathless. “Some high school kids stole the lights from the football field and got them hooked up to a car generator down at the lake.”

Felix’s tone was flat. “Okay. And?”

“And we’re going to play night hockey,” Ingrid replied, as if this was obvious, “and I would be playing night hockey, right now, if I wasn’t out here deciding which Felix-skulking spot you two were hanging around.”

“There’s only, like, three,” Sylvain protested.

 _“Regardless,”_ Ingrid said, “you two are in, right?”

Sylvain seemed to think about this, and then glanced at Felix. “Are we in?” he asked, as if to say, _I go where you go._

Felix was not planning on playing hockey that night. He could not remember the last time he played hockey, but Sylvain had this assuring expression on his face that seemed to promise a sufferable, survivable time. Felix let out a final huff at his shitty tree. He nodded, blunt, and said: “Yeah. We’re in.”

“Hell yeah,” Sylvain said.

“Heck yeah,” Ingrid agreed. “I need a new forward since Dimitri’s not playing.”

Felix snorted. “Even better. Let me grab my skates.”

The trio of them set out for the lake, on an adventure all together for what felt like the first time since high school. Ingrid was strategizing. Sylvain was listening, his cheeks still flushed from the moment he had shared with Felix. Whatever it was. Felix tried to put the exchange out of his mind. He tried to justify the redness with the weather. He abandoned his tree beside Dimitri’s doghouse and did not think of its existence in the ensuing lull of the night.

Felix played hockey.

❅

When Felix and Sylvain returned from a hockey game won by the skin of their teeth, it was past midnight. Sleep was beginning to beg at the gate of Felix’s mind fortress. Sylvain yawned several times over the course of their journey home, which forced Felix to clench his teeth together to fend off the ensuing instinct to mimic him.

Sylvain walked Felix back from the lake despite his house being a sharp branch away from Sylvain’s apartment. They chatted, brief, as they walked. Little anecdotes of hockey plays and current plans and meaningless notes on their direct surroundings. Any tension they had felt prior had long dispersed into the honeyglaze of a night out. Felix felt a loose, syrupy warmth coating his insides the entire path home.

Sylvain escorted Felix all the way to his doorstep. When they arrived, Sylvain could barely contain his sick joy at what awaited them.

Felix’s tree sat on his porch. It was decorated, the ornament balls replaced with smaller, lighter ornament balls and a large bow tied at the top in place of a star. It had been set into a pot of water, with two support splints placed around its skinny trunk. A christmas card was tucked lovingly into its branches.

Felix snatched it with no delicacy, and folded it open.

_Merry Christmas!_

_From your friend,_

_Dimitri_

_P.S. Dedue says not to overwater lest you shock the poor thing, so please take that to heart._

Sylvain was laughing fully, now. It was the prettiest laugh Felix had ever heard.

Felix grew furious. He snapped closed the card. He turned his voice towards the doghouse in the distance and yelled: “Don’t touch my things, Boar!”

Felix bundled the card and the tree into his arms. He turned to walk inside, his face scrunched in anger and accepted sentiment. “Good night, Sylvain,” he huffed out.

“Hey, uh,” Sylvain said. His hand caught on Felix’s shoulder.

Felix looked back at his best friend. “What?”

Sylvain did not seem to be able to form words. Instead, he leaned forward and placed the swiftest possible kiss on Felix’s cheek. 

It was so brief Felix barely felt it. Felix wanted to feel it. Sylvain skipped back, into fresh snow, and said, “Goodnight, Felix Fraldarius,” before outright fleeing.

Felix watched him retreat. Felix felt his face grow hot but his voice stayed silent. He did not know what to do. He did not know what to say. A golden glow overtook him from behind, casting his shadow long and fuzzy over the white blanket coating his yard. His gaze focused on Sylvain’s illuminated, left-behind footprints.

Felix’s father’s voice echoed behind him. Felix could barely hear the old man over the rush of his thoughts. Felix wiped a cold hand over flushed cheeks and shrugged his decorated tree closer to his chest. He said, “Alright. I hear you. I’m coming inside.”

Felix stepped into warm light, his chest still fluttering with Sylvain.


End file.
